"John Cleese, who played Basil, based the series on the Torquay hotel which he visited in 1971.

He described the then owner Donald Sinclair as "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met".

Mr Sinclair, who died in 1981, is said to have thrown fellow Monty Python colleague Eric Idle's suitcase out of the window "in case it contained a bomb" and complained about Terry Gilliam's table manners.

Barbara DePaulis is also returning to the hotel, which catered for daughter's disastrous wedding in the 1970s.

Guests are being invited to dress up as Basil and Sybil to mark the event

One guest had to be rushed to hospital with a broken nose and her husband was asked to wait tables.

She told BBC News: "It was the first wedding reception that the Gleneagles had had. They did not have enough staff or food.